The Spanish economy, struggling with the aftermath of the bursting of a housing bubble, has been particularly hard hit by the economic turmoil rolling across Europe. On Friday, the government reported that Spain's unemployment rate hit record high of 24.4%.

Spain's economy shrank by 0.3% from the previous quarter in the first three months of 2012, the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica said. The decline matched the 0.3% quarter-over-quarter decline in the fourth quarter of 2012.

On an annual basis, GDP declined by 0.4%.

The latest report was a bit better than some forecasts. Last week, The Bank of Spain's estimated that GDP fell by 0.4% in the quarter.

The yield on Spain's 10-year bonds, a measure of investor confidence in the economy, was little changed following Monday's report.

Four other eurozone countries that are dealing with sovereign debt issues -- Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal -- have previously reported at least two quarters of negative GDP, as have four other eurozone members -- Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Slovenia.

In addition, two other European Union members that like the United Kingdom use their own currencies -- Denmark and the Czech Republic -- are also in recession.

It is likely that both the eurozone and the broader European Union will be declared in recession when they issue GDP reports in coming weeks, The combined GDP for both fell by 0.3% in the fourth quarter.